


body frail, been to jail

by recrudescence



Category: Inception
Genre: M/M, Rimming, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-11
Updated: 2011-11-11
Packaged: 2017-10-25 23:05:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/275839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recrudescence/pseuds/recrudescence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was all going so well until Eames took a bullet in a bar fight, fired back, and promptly took another.</p><p>This came about thanks to <a href="http://platina.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://platina.livejournal.com/"><b>platina</b></a>, who wanted Arthur with a tramp stamp.</p>
            </blockquote>





	body frail, been to jail

**Author's Note:**

> **Contains blood and violence.** Also cowboys, Polish cinema, and bad tattoos.

It was all going so well until Eames took a bullet in a bar fight, fired back, and promptly took another.  


\---

“They’re brilliant, Arthur,” Eames had said, flippant and sure and static-pocked over a transatlantic phone call. “Yenifer pulled the Cyprus job no one thought would work, did it in less than a fortnight, and everyone and their neighbor’s mother’s milkman can vouch for Welsh’s building. They just need someone to dig a little deeper on the mark, then a couple extra hands to hold down the upper level while Yenifer goes one lower. Nothing to it, then we each walk away with a stupidly fat paycheck.”

“I don’t think ‘nothing to it’ actually applies to anything we do,” Arthur had argued, because giving in to any kind of job offer too soon was just poor form. Even if it was an offer from Eames, who could sell a map to a salmon.

And Eames had laughed, the sound of it tinny but still nearly rich enough to swallow, even six thousand miles away. “Your anal-retentive dedication to semantic accuracy is exactly why you’re perfect for this one. And,” he had added, “I’ve heard there are cowboys involved.”

Arthur had signed on out of sheer curiosity.

And maybe a little bit because of Eames.

\---

There were indeed cowboys.

Arthur had guiltily taken to imagining how Eames and cowboys might fit together, with the result generally resembling Brokeback Mountain, only without the death and self-hatred and lack of lube.

What he got instead was Deadwood.

Welsh really was an excellent architect. Arthur never asked why the upper level was a saloon straight out of a Clint Eastwood movie, but it was, and it was impeccable. He and Eames learned the layout without any trouble, taking into special account the cellar where Yenifer would be dreaming her way into the second level, and Arthur spent an absurd amount of time congratulating himself for not staring like an idiot each time Eames tried on a different forgery just for the fun of it.

The level itself was straightforward and Arthur wasn’t at all worried about being able to hold down the fort until he happened to find out the mark was studying lucid dreaming.

“He’s been taking meditation classes and plowing through books about this kind of thing. He has his own personal _shaman_. It’s not militarization, but the objective is the same.”

“He could be terrible at it,” Eames pointed out. “But of course, it’s impossible to know until we’re in there, isn’t it?”

“That still doesn’t mean—”

“So we do this and we’re careful about it. Just like we always are.” Eames was looking at him with calm eyes, lips turned up at the corners. He moved in closer, one warm hand resting on Arthur’s forearm just below the edge of his rolled-up sleeve. “We’ll just have to try a little harder to blend in. But if anything goes wrong, you can say you warned us about it and be as smug as you want.”

Arthur was ready to reply that that wasn’t the point at all, but then Yenifer was saying something and Eames was giving his arm a squeeze before standing up and he couldn’t utter a word.

\---

During the actual extraction, smugness was the farthest thing from Arthur’s mind.

Welsh had been a little too precise with her designs. The entire place was gritty and smoky and faithful to the time period as far as Arthur could tell, which unfortunately meant dreaming up an actual first aid kit was out of the question when a very period-appropriate gunfight broke out.

Eames was playing the role of a hardened gunslinger and seeming to delight in it. Not forging per se, just adopting a certain swagger, a certain accent, and somehow becoming an entirely new person in the process while still remaining himself. Arthur felt a little out of place in this setting, but his job was purely to slip under the radar and keep Yenifer safe and so far he’d had no difficulties.

When the place started getting too crowded for comfort, too many projections coming in at once. he was the one who suggested maybe Eames should cause a diversion to keep everyone’s attention occupied. It wasn’t anything beyond staging a small scuffle, the sort of simple-yet-effective thing Eames did so well, but it went wrong.

The next thing Arthur knew, Eames’s dun-brown coat was painted with color that hadn’t been there a moment ago and he was fully expecting the entire level to collapse when Eames did.

Everything would have been manageable if Eames wasn’t the dreamer and if blending in with their surroundings wasn’t absolutely necessary. But until Yenifer finished up the extraction on the lower level, they couldn’t risk tipping off the mark that he was dreaming and the most useful thing Arthur could do was shoulder his way through the brawl to haul Eames out of it. Surrounded by goggle-eyed projections in an Old West style tavern, there really wasn’t much to be done besides Arthur half-dragging Eames to the floor right on top of the cellar hatch and hissing useless advice. “ _Move_ , damn it, you’ll be okay. Just drop the goddamn gun; don’t strain yourself.”

Eames was pale and sputtering just as uselessly back at him, but Arthur didn’t catch a word of it, preoccupied by noting that the projections were only staring instead of attacking and therefore presumably hadn’t caught on. Thank fuck for small favors. “Here, lie down, let me—just stay still, we’re gonna see how bad it is, all right?” The least he could do was pull the knife from his boot put it to good use.

Tearing open the front of Eames’s shirt was simple, but cutting the cloth away from his right arm and side, where the blood had soaked through, took more time and effort than Arthur anticipated. Eames hissed in pain and the fabric twisted, blood-wet and snagging against the blade. Arthur’s hands were smeared red from gripping at it by the time he managed to lay Eames’s side bare from neck to waist—broad chest, rigid nipples, dusting of dark gold hair over tattooed skin, the kind of body he would have been honored to have the chance to undress under circumstances that didn’t involve bullets. One had apparently passed clean through Eames’s shoulder, while another had raked across his abdomen deeply enough to leave the flesh bloody and ragged. Arthur had no idea whether that slug had passed through as well or if it was still lodged inside him somewhere.

Eames’s eyes were closed. Arthur swore, smothered the urge to shake him, and cast around for something to stanch the flow. “ _Shit_ , Eames. Do not fucking do this to me. Talk to me, tell me how you feel.”

He was ready to strangle Welsh for pouring all her creativity into something straight off the Oregon Trail instead of something _modern_ where a little goddamn medical supplies wouldn’t be glaringly out of place. “I can’t dream you anything, but just stay with me. All right? Say something, whatever you want, let me know you’re still here.”

Amazingly, Eames lolled his head to look up at him. Dirt from the filthy floorboards snagged itself in his hair. “This town ain’t big enough for the two of us.”

“Oh, fuck you.” Arthur was baring his teeth, too strained to manage a smile. “Whatever town you end up in next, I swear I’ll hunt you down and kick you in the face if you die on me now. You can be working at an outpost in Antarctica and I will _still_ find you and bludgeon you with a penguin.”

“That…” Eames coughed, a hideous sound. “That’s almost romantic. How in the world are you still single?”

As long as he could tease him, he was still all right, even if he didn’t look it. “We’re just going to have to keep you here and wait it out until the kick,” Arthur admitted, struggling out of his jacket. “Deep breath, I’m gonna—” And he pushed the wadded-up cloth against Eames’s middle, clenching his jaw when Eames shuddered and cried out.

“You’ll be fine, just hold that, okay?” He maneuvered Eames’s uninjured arm to keep the jacket pressed in place. There was no chance of fresh gauze and bandages in this place, not unless he dreamed them up and blew their cover by disrupting the balance, but it was tempting to do it anyway.

Since the right half of Eames’s shirt was saturated with blood, Arthur shrugged off his own and set to work wrapping it tight around Eames’s shoulder wound. “Just a few more minutes, you can handle a few more minutes. Right?”

No answer. Across the room, a few of the ceiling rafters crashed to the floor. “Eames,” Arthur ground out. “ _Right_?”

Very vaguely, Eames nodded.

Arthur hazarded a glance at the projections still crowded silently around them. “Can someone get me a goddamn medic, is that too much to ask?”

One of them handed over a bottle of what appeared to be gin, since that was apparently as sophisticated as painkillers got around here. Arthur wanted to throw back his head and laugh, but having Eames tipsy and bleeding was still better than having him die and take the entire dream with him.

When Arthur held the bottle to his lips, Eames drank without comment. Unthinkingly, Arthur smoothed back his hair. Maybe he could somehow maneuver Eames into the cellar and hold the door on his own if the projections tried to follow. “Eames, hey, this isn’t gonna work; can you get up?”

Eames gasped when Arthur tried to help him onto his side. “ _Damn_ it,” Arthur spat, pulling back his hands immediately. “No, wait, don’t get up. Fuck, I’d carry you if I could, if you weren’t built like a brick shithouse.”

“How,” Eames mumbled, “does anyone ever think that’s a compliment?”

“It’s not _meant_ to be a compliment, it means you’re huge and it’s disgusting,” Arthur informed him, pulling off his belt and looping it around the shirt packed against Eames’s middle. “Grit your teeth, I’m gonna pull this now.”

Even though he was anticipating it, it still speared straight through him when Eames roared in pain as the belt tightened. “You’re fine, you’re good,” Arthur assured him, fumbling for the gin with shaky hands and spilling a fair amount of it down Eames’s neck in the process. “And seriously, it’s disgusting, _you’re_ disgusting, how do you even exist, how do your arms even _get_ that many muscles, it’s like you’re the sexy British version of the Hulk. Open up.” He held Eames’s head steady as he poured a little more gin into his mouth, dust sticking to his sweaty skin as the ground gave a little lurch under them. Eames groaned and tried to twist away.

Arthur kept rattling on, because as long as he made conversation Eames would keep trying to uphold his end of it. “I can kill you, if the pain is too much,” he whispered, watching carefully as Eames trembled and the shirt around his shoulder soaked through all over again. “Just tell me if you need that.”

Eames scowled up at him as if Arthur had just admitted to drowning kittens in his spare time. “Can’t—can’t hold them off—not on your own.” Rasping, gulping down more gin when Arthur proffered it. “I can hang on.”

“Five more minutes,” Arthur promised, lying through his teeth. His pocket watch had gotten lost in the scuffle and he had no idea how far off his guess was. He squeezed Eames’s hand, which had somehow ended up in his, and craned his neck to survey the place and see if he could catch sight of the clock behind the door. No luck.

It was supposed to be so easy, just standing guard while Yenifer was asleep in the cellar. Nothing to it, just like Eames had said. At least one thing was certain: the entire place was going to blow at any minute, had to, he’d set the explosives himself before the projections came pouring in.

Eames groaned and the rafters shook again. Behind the bar, a shelf of bottles gave way and shattered. Arthur swallowed.

He was on his knees, twisting around to grab for the six-shooter he had mislaid earlier, when there was the sensation of bare skin brushing coolly against his lower back where his trousers had slipped down without a belt. Arthur practically jumped through the ceiling. “ _Jesus_. Was that really necessary?”

Eames was making a horrible, rasping sound as if he’d inhaled all the smoke and sawdust of the room around them and couldn’t figure out how to breathe it back out. Arthur felt a stab of morbid amazement when he realized that Eames was laughing at him. “I th-thought you didn’t know how to change yourself.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Eames was reaching for him again, grimacing. Arthur caught his hand and firmly guided it back down to his side. “Stop moving, moron, you’ll make it worse.”

“Why—” Eames began, “why would you—” and Arthur noticed that his eyes were unfocused, that there was too much blood drenching his makeshift bandages and not enough blood in his face. “Of all things to forge, why—”

“Focus on not dying now, focus on asking stupid questions later.”

“You’ll have to,” Eames was saying, lips dry, everything else too wet, too much blood, still flowing, _fuck_ , “have to tell me when you learned.”

“You’ll have to buy me a drink first,” Arthur said flatly, tilting Eames’s head up for more gin and giving him a little jiggle when his eyes started to shutter. “Hey. Eames. _Hey_.”

He was gripping Eames’s hair, pulling like a recalcitrant kindergartener, and it wasn’t fucking _right_ not being able to put him out of his misery, but maybe he’d do it anyway if the charges didn’t go off soon enough, pull the trigger and fuck the consequences. “Do not fucking die on me now, Eames; you can do this. You _can_.”

Eames smiled and the world exploded.

\---

Yenifer shook his hand afterward, thanked him for making the job as quick and easy as possible, assuring him that his attention to detail had been greatly appreciated. Arthur kept his words concise, his mind on the payoff, and his eyes on the other side of the room where Welsh was chatting with Eames. Nonchalant, intact Eames, stomach and shoulders hale and whole under the light linen of his jacket.

Eames ambled up to him as they were clearing out of the building. “So, drinks, then?”

Arthur finished checking the locks on the briefcase. “As long as there’s no gin.”

“Fine by me.” Eames grimaced. “Don’t suppose you fancy going to a pub?”

“How about,” Arthur said slowly, “you pick up a bottle of something and we can order in. Low maintenance sounds good right now.”

He wasn’t sure if he’d just killed the prospect of a first date or skipped straight to the third by asking—assuming drinks alone with Eames could be considered a date as opposed to a thank-God-we-didn’t-fuck-this-up-any-worse acknowledgement—but Eames agreed without so much as a snicker.

The last time the two of them had met for drinks, Eames had been killing time in a Savannah restaurant until the woman he was tailing was scheduled to arrive for her dinner reservation at the next table over. After an hour, he had texted Arthur to come keep him company so he didn’t look overly suspicious and, when it became clear the mark wasn’t going to show up at all, the two of them had made the best of their situation by ordering the place’s most expensive bottle of wine under Eames’s current alias. The time before then, it had been at a Bolivian bar, they had been squabbling over soccer teams in a casually combative sort of way, and Eames had bowed out early in order to go to bed. Arthur hadn’t known whether he’d been cheated or whether he should have offered to accompany him. They didn’t make a habit of meeting in each other’s personal spaces, and up until now he’d always believed that was for the best.

So, despite habitually enjoying thoughts about Eames in a somewhat less than professional vein, Arthur wasn’t sure how to comport himself for something like this. For all he knew, Eames just wanted to drink himself into a stupor and pass out in front of a CSI rerun. He’d never asked Eames what his preferred method of coping with dream-death was, assuming he still had one after so many years of experiencing it.

Arthur erred on the side of caution anyway. Half because he honestly wanted to know and half so he would have at least two safe topics of conversation to bring up later, he checked to be sure wire transfers had gone through and then checked his sources to confirm nothing out of the ordinary had transpired with the mark since they’d wrapped the job. Then he showered, changed into jeans, and showed up at Eames’s hotel armed with facts, figures, and some takeout menus from the lobby.

When Eames greeted him at the door, messy-haired and wearing a threadbare t-shirt, Arthur could only stare. “You started already?” he finally asked once he caught sight of the bottle resting on the coffee table.

“There’s plenty to go around,” Eames said, and somehow poured another glass without taking his eyes off Arthur’s fistful of menus. “Is there anything Greek in there? I crave baklava when I’ve been shot.”

“You’ve been shot a thousand times.”

“Any excuse for baklava,” Eames said cheerfully. “Have a seat.”

\---

There was a film on, which appeared to be a murder mystery and also appeared to be in Polish, a language neither of them spoke a word of—“but it’s amazing what you can pick up on without words, isn’t it?” Eames said, so earnestly Arthur didn’t have the heart to disagree—and between scotch and kabobs and picking apart every last detail Welsh had overlooked, Arthur grudgingly admitted to himself that maybe he’d assumed a little too much. At the very least, Eames was decent company and he didn’t seem to mind Arthur sprawling facedown on one of the queen-sized beds instead of throwing himself into a chair.

“I should have dreamed it up anyway,” he muttered into his drink, maybe the third. “Just a fucking bandage would’ve been better than nothing.”

He might have mentioned this already, since Eames gave a long-suffering sigh and logically pointed out that it hadn’t been the first time he’d been wounded while under and that changing the dream would have only resulted in the projections tearing them apart, collapsing the level, and ruining the entire job. “But it was very valiant of you, using the shirt off your back to keep me alive like that.”

Arthur didn’t answer, too busy watching the way Eames’s tee pulled taut across his shoulders when he leaned to set his glass aside. If he spread his legs just slightly, the inseam of his jeans and the pressure of the mattress rubbed against him _just_ enough to feel wonderful without making him want to rut against the bed like a horny teenager. His face felt unnaturally warm, but if he was a little flushed no one could say it was from anything but the alcohol. From where Eames was sitting, he probably couldn’t see Arthur’s face at all. Gingerly, Arthur rolled his hips and bit down on a sigh.

“So tell me,” Eames said suddenly, “how did you learn? I saw something, I know I did.”

“What makes you think it wasn’t real?” Arthur pushed himself up onto one elbow, doing his damnedest to act like his cock wasn’t pressing rock-hard against the front of his jeans.

“Was it?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“That’s why I’m asking, isn’t it? Maybe I’m dying to know what someone like you would go under the needle for. “

Eames was completely focused on him now, ignoring the Polish film still playing quietly in the background. With calculated insouciance, Arthur finished his drink and stretched to place the glass on the floor at the foot of the bed. If it was only scotch and optimism making it seem as if Eames’s eyes tracked his every move, he could ignore that for now. “Then maybe you should check for yourself.”

\---

He didn’t actually expect Eames to do anything except maybe laugh and ask if he needed a refill. When Eames actually rose from the armchair and murmured, “Maybe you’re right,” it took Arthur a second to grasp he wasn’t imagining it.

He stayed on his stomach, hard-on hidden against the mattress, and watched as Eames slowly made his way to the bed. Shirt too tight, eyes too sharp, pants nothing but thin flannel—Arthur could reach and mold a hand to the shape of his cock right through them if he wanted to, could just as easily fit his mouth over the head of it and have the cloth soaked through in no time. Then Eames settled beside him, the bed dipping under his weight, and Arthur was fully occupied by sighing and trying not to arch into the touch as Eames slowly drew up the back of his shirt.

“You know,” Eames mused, two of his fingers trying to draw down the denim of Arthur’s waistband, “I can’t see quite well enough. You’ll need to help me along here.”

Teeth gritted, Arthur slipped both hands underneath himself and shuddered into his own touch as he unzipped. “Is that—?” Fuck, Eames would have to be _dense_ not to notice how turned on he was by now, so there was no point in pretending otherwise. He eased a hand around his cock, squeezing lightly, and pressed his forehead to the bed. “’s that enough?”

Eames’s knuckles tripped across his hip and Arthur sank his teeth into his lip. “A little more, please.”

This time, Arthur didn’t even bother using his hands, squirming shamelessly into his own fist until he’d worked his jeans low enough for Eames’s satisfaction. He could feel Eames’s eyes on him before he felt the ticklingly light graze of his fingertips. “So I was wrong. You’re still shite at forging.”

“Disappointed?” Arthur asked, fidgeting when Eames’s hand splayed broad and heated around the jut of his hip. There was no danger of being judged by someone who had a few poorly thought-out tattoos of his own, but somehow just having a small part of himself exposed and examined made him feel as if Eames were seeing him naked.

“No,” Eames assured him. His voice sounded lower, lingering on the word almost reverently. “Not at all.” Roughness gritted against the hollow of Arthur’s back and it was only sheer surprise that kept him from yelping. Eames was humming contently and actually _nuzzling_ him there like Arthur was his own personal pillow, as if he had no idea Arthur was on the verge of curving up enough to let Eames drag his jeans and briefs the rest of the way off, then touch and learn his body all he pleased. At least this time he knew it wasn’t just the scotch tinting his perceptions.

“I was twenty, on furlough in Peru,” Arthur blurted out, since he was sure he would end up whining if he didn’t say something. “Celebrating with some friends after one of them bailed me out of prison. That was a week full of bad decisions.”

“Not in the least,” Eames breathed, warm at the base of his spine. He was still stroking his fingertips over the small of Arthur’s back, chin scraping, making Arthur gasp and jolt his hips against the mattress. “What sort of person were you at twenty?”

Arthur could have melted into the soft damp heat of Eames’s lips brushing along the tattoo. “I was angry,” he said, and it was supposed to be a statement but it came out as a moan when Eames’s tongue flitted curiously against his skin. “I hated everything. I always went looking for a fight. I was also a chickenshit closet case, but I thought I was a hardass for being in the Army and being able to hold my liquor. Until Peru.”

“Until Peru,” Eames echoed, and Arthur felt his smile against his spine. “Little firebrand, weren’t you? How’d you end up marked with this instead of an eagle driving a tank or whatever ostentatious designs angry American soldiers generally prefer?”

Arthur snorted and forced himself to slide his hand out of his pants. “Hey, if it’s that upsetting, I can just—” He reached back to cover himself, but Eames’s hand closed around his wrist and guided it down.

“Can I see…?” Eames’s voice was hushed, sandpapery, and he wasn’t referring to Arthur’s misbegotten tattoo anymore; that much was clear.

Arthur groaned, mouth hanging open, face hot against the bunched blankets. “Yeah. Please, yeah.”

That was enough; Eames’s fingers were easing under the elastic of his briefs and slowly, slowly pulling them over his ass.

But even after baring him entirely, he made no move to touch Arthur any lower at first, still nosing across the swirls of ink. “ _Fuck_ , Arthur, your _skin_ …God, you’re delicious, will you let me—” And licking him then, just above the cleft of his ass, pressing him apart with blunt fingers, spreading him gently and so, so slowly even though Arthur was swearing and gasping out _yes, fuck, **yes**_ and doing his best to arch his back, part his legs, and writhe out of his shirt all at the same time. Then he felt Eames’s breath against his entrance and the only thing he could do was grip the covers and moan.

“Arthur,” he was whispering, “Arthur, can I—” and **_God_** , yes caught in Arthur’s throat the way Eames’s tongue caught against his skin and then he was being kissed, _there_ , slick and obscene and he was moaning and grinding his erection into the covers without even bothering to take a hand. It was enough just letting Eames curl his tongue up into him, press him open, hands spreading his cheeks and kneading them a little. He was still almost entirely clothed, just his ass pressed back and his mind blurred with alcohol and disbelief and the realization that he was finally, _finally_ getting his first real kiss from Eames and it was _this_.

Strung out and spread wide, Arthur started to laugh.

\---

It couldn’t have gone on long, Arthur giving sharp little thrusts of his hips and fucking himself back on that clever, clever tongue as it went curling deep, licking him open. He knew himself well enough to know his limits, but Eames seemed to spend forever like that, with his tongue inside him and his stubble rasping against Arthur’s thighs, making him leak against the mattress and try to squirm even though both of Eames’s hands were still holding him immobile and his mouth was wet and filthy against his hole.

Until, all at once, it wasn’t there anymore. One thick finger pressed against him instead, the tip working its way inside when Arthur choked out a plea, and Eames was biting lightly at the base of his back again, sucking at the inked skin there and marking him all over again

“If I have to make a condom run like this,” Arthur informed the duvet, “then I will.”

Fortunately, Eames was shaking his head when he helped him turn over and finish undressing. “I took the liberty of picking up a few other things along with the refreshments.”

“Seriously?” Arthur knew he sounded dazed, but it was all because Eames and his red-stained mouth were very distracting. “Isn’t that kind of presumptuous?”

“More than kind of, I’d say.” Eames was already drawing open a drawer with one hand and helping himself to more scotch with the other, straight from the bottle, then leaning in to share it with him. Not even Arthur could argue with that. He gave himself up to the heated tang of alcohol and the taste of Eames underneath it, tongue boldly sliding into his mouth.

“Shirt,” he mumbled against Eames’s lips, maneuvering one hand underneath and letting his nails drag against the unmarred skin of his belly. “’s in the way.”

“Oh, this?” I thought I should leave it on since you find my arms so offensive.”

Arthur sucked hard at the side of his neck, deftly undoing the drawstring of his pants. “I didn’t mean that.”

“So I didn’t make up the part where you called me a sexy British Hulk?”

“That?” Arthur grinned. “Yes. Definitely. You were obviously delirious.”

“Liar.” Eames did at least discard the shirt, closing his eyes when Arthur drew out his cock. “I’ve never known anyone with such a creative bedside manner. You were ready to strip naked in order to save my life.”

“To save the _job_ ,” Arthur corrected, gripping him a little tighter.

“That too, of course.”

“Glad we agree.” Arthur ducked down and licked him. “You should probably fuck me now.”

For once, Eames didn’t have some sort of quip ready for him.

\---

Eames didn’t hold back, which was perfect, since Arthur couldn’t have held back even if he wanted to. Eames kissed him hard, spread him out supine with his legs indecently wide, and thrust two slick fingers inside him without preamble, the stretch of it leaving Arthur panting. “Oh, fuck—”

“Yeah?” Eames rasped at him. “Is that what you’re after?” Arthur knew he was goading him, either seeking validation or just reveling in how pornographic he sounded, which was very, but he was beyond caring. The question was hardly out of Eames’s mouth and Arthur was already gasping for more, rolling his hips down harder still against Eames’s hand when a third finger toyed against his rim.

“Shall I give you another?” Eames’s voice was warm and amused against his ear. Arthur groaned again, louder, and Eames’s fingers withdrew almost completely. “No,” Eames was murmuring at him, “you don’t need it, do you? I could’ve fucked you without giving you any fingers at all and you’d have taken it, you opened right up for me before.”

Arthur clenched at the bedding and writhed, which wasn’t doing anything but proving Eames right. “Why am I not surprised you talk too much?”

“Do I? So sorry.” It shouldn’t even be _possible_ for Eames to look innocent anymore, and Arthur was prepared to say so. Then Eames went licking up the underside of his cock, plump lips kissing over the head before taking him in fully, sucking him down slow and wet and not faltering once even when Arthur’s hips thrust upward too roughly. Still fucking him on two thick fingers, the tips of them rubbing against his prostate so ruthlessly Arthur was in danger of coming in his mouth. He kept grinding down mindlessly on Eames’s hand all the same, panting for breath and trying to slip down one of his own to ease in one of his fingers as well.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Eames chided, pinning his wrist. “You’re bloody awful, Arthur, I mean it. I’m starting to feel unnecessary here.”

The next thing Arthur knew, he was pulling out and flipping him over. He was fairly sure Eames wouldn’t just _leave_ him like this to make a point, since that wouldn’t be satisfying for either of them, but anxiety stirred in his gut all the same. “Wait, why are you—” he started, but Eames’s lips slid against his and the rest of his query dissolved into a sigh.

“So I can see this,” he traced a thumb across Arthur’s tattoo, “while I’m in you, when I’m fucking you until I can't even remember my own bloody name. And when I’m ready, I’m going to pull out and come on you. Then maybe I’ll lick you clean and eat you out again until you’re begging me to kiss you because you’re a filthy little thing who can’t keep quiet to save his life.”

There really wasn’t a verbal way to respond to that. Arthur twisted around to kiss him, going watery-limbed from the thick pressure of Eames’s cock nudging up against him, blunt and hot even though the latex. “Yeah,” he breathed, not sure Eames could even understand him, “come on, do it, please.”

Eames slid in fully, gripping Arthur’s hips to keep him steady, and Arthur’s toes curled. “ _Fuck_ , please.”

He wasn’t sure which of them said it. He was sure that Eames must be saying _something_ , when he started rhythmically easing back and then in again, between uttering those bone-deep groans that scorched Arthur’s blood and made him hide his face against the pillows. The pillowcase was sticking to his skin, but with any luck the pillow was muffling whatever ridiculous sounds he was making while he fucked his own fist in time to Eames fucking him.

When Eames took his hands off him, Arthur choked out a protest at the loss. One of Eames’s palms began stroking his back right away, Eames’s lips pressing kisses his cheek and temple. “No, darling, none of that. I want to see it when I fuck you.” His fingers slid over Arthur’s damp skin, up the length of his cock and the slickness of his belly until he was guiding his chin around in order to kiss him properly. “Please? Show me.”

Arthur tried to ignore the heat rushing to his cheeks when he swallowed and braced himself on one arm, obediently arching and presenting himself like an animal in heat. “Listen, I’m not…”

“God, that’s perfect,” Eames interrupted, heat and gravel in his tone, and Arthur whined, rocked down on his cock as if Eames’s voice alone was enough to pull him back. “You’re fucking perfect like that,” Eames said softly; “move for me, go on.”

Arthur’s body did, not allowing his mind the chance to catch up. Clenching hard around the perfect stretch of Eames’s cock inside him, he fucked himself back on it as if he didn’t remember how to do anything else but take and be taken, and Eames scarcely needed to move at all, resting nothing but the lightest touch on Arthur’s back.

 _So good, you’re so good._ He only said it once, so gently Arthur nearly missed it. When Eames reached around to touch him, Arthur shuddered and spilled over his fist.

Eames didn’t outlast him by long, draping himself over Arthur’s back until they were pressed together as much as possible. His hands curled around Arthur’s hips as he thrust up into him, teeth in the soft flesh of his nape when he came. When Eames slid out of him, Arthur hissed and pressed him close, almost able to imagine Eames had actually come inside him and that, when his tongue filled him up all over again, it would licking him clean until he was dribbling precome over his stomach and aching to be fucked a second time. Brokeback Mountain had nothing on this.

Instead, Eames kissed his neck and looked at him with a rather rueful smirk.

“So.” Eames was still stroking at the slickness between Arthur’s thighs. “That didn’t exactly go according to plan.”

“ _Nothing_ ever goes—” Arthur clenched down when Eames rubbed a fingertip over his hole and felt his cock pulse feebly, trying to get hard again even though he couldn’t possibly come again so soon. “You know what, come here.” He reached out blindly, rolling onto a relatively clean spot and not caring if he was rolling onto Eames in the process. “Fuck plans. Just come here.”

Moving wasn’t an option, with the exception of tangling limbs together and sharing a final swallow of scotch. Arthur licked a stray stream of it off Eames’s chin, then licked against his mouth for good measure until Eames parted it and pulled him into the filthiest kiss Arthur could remember partaking in.

“Do you have any plans from here?” he asked eventually, unable to keep himself from staring when Eames turned onto his side. Even flushed and half mashed against the pillow, he was still unfairly gorgeous.

“Until next month, no. I’ve got something lined up with Norvys, supposed to be a simple one-level deal.”

“Nothing to it,” muttered Arthur.

“Nothing at all.” One of Eames’s arms settled around him and Arthur moved in closer, automatic. “Unless you think I need someone to keep me in line.”

“Interesting. Where?”

“Antarctica,” Eames said. “I’ve heard they have some lovely outposts there.”

Arthur halfheartedly pinched one of his nipples, making a mental note of Eames’s reaction when he gave a soft cry. “I’m serious, asshole.”

“Bikaner, in Rajasthan.”

And even though it was poor form to give into a job prospect too soon, Arthur was already flipping through his mental calendar and trying to remember if he knew anything about Rajasthan. “That’s not a very big town, is it?” he said finally, yawning into Eames’s hair.

Eames’s hand slid down his back, drifting over the tattoo like he could feel it standing out from Arthur’s skin. “Big enough.”

\---

Behold, the art that started it all, courtesy of [](http://platina.livejournal.com/profile)[**platina**](http://platina.livejournal.com/) :

  


  



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